Observed

Of course it's important to take bar rules on client communications seriously. However, there are plenty of effective ways to offer evidence that you're thinking about your prospects' needs without risking your license.

When I think about the three main reasons why clients and prospects visit your law firm’s Web site, I imagine that I also hear, “Yeah, but” in response.

As in, “Yeah, I realize studies say that clients want assurance that I can fix their problems and that I can make their lives easier (and that they’ll like working with me), but I have a professional code of ethical conduct.  I could be reprimanded or endanger my license if I make claims like that.”

My advice?  Don’t.

• First, back up.   Your state’s code of conduct probably isn’t a priority for most clients and prospects.  So, remember that they’re far more worried about their needs, not yours.

• Second, how you address Can you fix my problem? and Will you make my life easier? is more nuanced than a simple yes or no.

For example, a strategically-written case study can speak volumes about your abilities without ever promising a result.  Same with testimonials, rankings and other third-party endorsements.

Your bio is not merely a resume.  It’s the principal destination for most of your site’s visitors, one that offers you an opportunity to tell your story…in terms that matter to your visitors’ stated needs.

The ancient Romans (and many other cultures) understood the importance of perspective to beginnings and transitions. That's one of the reasons they created Janus, the (sometimes mixed gender) diety with two faces, one looking to the past and the other to the future.

What clients want from their professional service providers is pretty well established.  According to many experts, when prospects visit your law firm or architectural practice’s Web site or pick up your brochure, they probably have three questions in mind:

1. Can you fix my problem?
2. Will you make my life easier?
3. Will I like working with you?

Despite abundant evidence of this buyer’s perspective, a lot (no, most) of the marketing content I see (especially from law firms) puts the focus on the provider’s or the firm’s credentials instead of on the client’s needs.

Kon Leong, on the other hand, gets it.  He’s the co-founder, president and chief executive of ZL Technologies, an e-mail and file archiving company based in San Jose, Calif.  Here’s how he described his approach in a recent New York Times “Corner Office” interview:

One of my early jobs was selling computer hardware. What I learned about selling was probably more valuable than my M.B.A. I had seen selling as a process just about logic. Then I realized that has nothing to do with it.

You have to present your story in their context, not yours. They don’t really care if you’re standing on top of a robot and quoting equations. If they’re in the deep part of the forest, you’ve got to talk the language of the deep forest.

So, demonstrate (through case studies and the like) that you’ve solved your clients’ problems.  Demonstrate — don’t merely assert — that you care about client satisfaction by interviewing and surveying your clients…and then publishing the results.  And tell your readers what you’re like and what you do in your spare time, instead of treating this kind of Web content as something beneath you.

Dan Toombs is a lawyer and law firm marketing guru based in Australia. His podcast has thousands of listeners worldwide.

I’ve been invited to participate in an upcoming podcast produced by the Australian lawyer and self-styled change agent, Dan Toombs.  The subject of my interview will be best practices for on-line attorney bios, and I’ll be featured on Dan’s law firm marketing podcast site.

Here’s what Dan said to me:

Doug, really liked your recent guest video post on Larry’s site, and would love to interview you for the podcast on how Attorneys should configure and promote their bio’s. Would only need 20 – 30 minutes of your time.  Although I broadcast from Australia, my subscriber list has approximately 600 US Attorneys and Practice Managers and a strong listenership on iTunes.

More as I know more.

My buddy, Colleen Wainwright, shared several awesome tips yesterday on how to make you and your writing sound more natural and down-to-earth.  Here’s one suggestion that really jumped out at me:

Some people can avoid slipping into their Plastic-Man Voice by using dictation. One terrific way to sound more like yourself in your writing is to have someone interview you.

She’s right.

I like to read what I’ve written out loud.  It makes it MUCH harder for anything too lofty or unnatural or unintended to get by.

Scriptwriters do this all the time.  The Table Read is a major step in the script editing process, when the entire cast gets together and each actor reads their part.

Here’s what that looks like:

Visitors come to law firm Web sites mostly to check out lawyer bios.  It’s a fact.

Here’s a quick video offering five simple tips to improve yours:

Want more?

Your Web site is like a grocery shelf. How does it display your products? Does it make your readers feel like foreigners?

Yabancı

As a recent foreign exchange student spending four months in Istanbul, I didn’t need to be reminded that I was a foreigner.

Yet, virtually wherever I went, I overheard yabancı, the Turkish word for foreigner.

I knew I was different, but having others remind me was uncomfortable.

For example, the first time I went to the grocery store, I forgot my dictionary.   As a result, I got home with lumpy cottage cheese, a jar of tomato paste, and moldy vegetables.

This feeling of being an outsider might be how Web site visitors struggle upon encountering unfamiliar content.  They, too, can feel like yabancılar.

Readers visit sites, particularly sites in the professional services sector, looking for assurance and solutions.  Users look for providers who can fix their problems and make their lives easier.  They’re also seeking some kind of personal connection to feel like less like a yabancı.

So, sites should encourage visitors to relax and stay put.  Consider how well your site engages your visitors and if it is…

1. Coherent: Well-organized content is attractive and inviting, encouraging readers to spend time on your site.
2. Down-to-Earth:  Readers are often put off by jargon.  Use simple, clear language.
3. Brief: Remember the Nielsen effect.  Long looks hard, and hard doesn’t get read.

Eventually, I didn’t need a dictionary.  What I remember best, however, were the times that my Turkish neighbors  welcomed me and helped with my broken Turkish.  They made me feel like less like a yabancı.

Like words? Read Joyce.

At least not much.  They scan.

Particularly if they’re well-educated, high-literacy visitors to a Web site.

I was reminded of this bit of well-documented research in a recent post by Jakob Nielsen.  In this post, the king of user interface went on to report that the average reader reads just 120 words per page.  (FYI, that was 53 words…if you’ve even gotten this far.)

So, the big take-away for Web content is to Keep It Short.

PS:  Here’s a related post.

Technorati has a pretty good idea why we blog. Since 2002, the blog search engine has been tracking millions of blogs and social media worldwide.

I plan to have a big birthday May 12th.  (As a public service, here’s my Amazon Wish List.)  So, I identify with the blogging impulse identified by Kevin O’Keefe in his Why bother with a law blog? post yesterday.

For an answer, Kevin turned to Bill Gates (son of a prominent lawyer) and others.  He heard that at least some of us blog in order to leave a legacy.  In other words, it’s recognition that life is short and the written word is long.

No doubt.  A sense of mortality explains a lot of the choices we’ve been making every day for centuries…from child rearing to cave paintings and a lot in between.

If, however, you care to really know why people blog, ask Technorati.  It’s the preeminent blog search engine, tracking and analyzing blogs since its launch in 2002.  In 2008, it claimed to be following 112 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media worldwide.

Technorati’s go-to State of the Blogosphere reports that expressing a personal passion (such as a hobby) ranks high in explaining the urge to blog. So does seeking a connection with others — particularly if others are like-minded.  Conversely, making money is toward the bottom of the list.

On the other hand, a lot of us apparently blog to advance careers or to gain professional recognition.

So, Kevin’s right.  Leaving a legacy is part of the answer.  Maybe a big reason why we blog.

My sense, however, is that we all blog for different reasons.  Or, different shades of one or two big, virtually universal reasons.

Because after all, we never get any better than human.  Whether we blog or not.

Take a look at Seth’s post from this morning.  Tell me if you agree that vendors and clients live in the binary world Seth seems to describe — where we either use our power to choose or we don’t.

Or, as Seth puts it, we abdicate.

So many things are now completely up to us, more than ever before. Where and how and when we work and invest and interact and instruct and learn…

If you think you have no choice but to do what you do now, you’ve already made a serious error.

It seems to me that passing the buck on this merely because it’s easier than choosing is precisely the wrong strategy. It enables an abdication of power that will be very hard to reverse. It’s up to you, and that’s part of the power that you’ve got.

I get that I have the power to choose.  I also understand that my clients have the same power, authority and ability to choose that I have.

In the best, most satisfying relationships, however, I’ve found that my clients and I share.

I typically, for example, offer my clients options.  I might say, Would you like me to make some recommendations?  Or, perhaps, I might even ask, Would you like for me to choose?

They might say no.  They might say yes.  Whatever they say at any given moment, it’s part of a conversation that reflects the respect we have for ourselves and for one another.

And one that reflects the need to be willing and open to the possibilities of collaboration.

Take a look at this infographic from Brafton’s Katherine Griwert.  It makes a compelling case for the importance of quality content to drive organic traffic.

The trick is in defining quality.  Google’s Amit Singhal and other experts aren’t quite as clear on this point, except to say that the search engines are looking for sites that create a “positive user experience” and that the path to that is through quality content.

In a nutshell, that means copy that’s engaging and that gets to the point.

What I offer my Web content clients is that search engines like the same things that people tend to like.  So…

• Keep things short.  250 words is plenty long for anything you might call a page.
• Use bullets, paragraph breaks, bold type and other formatting tools to break up your text.  If it looks long, it won’t get read…much less remembered.
• Headlines and subheads are huge.  Think of them as if they’re billboards…and your readers are moving 80 miles per hour.
• Tell your story.  Readers come to a professional service provider sites to find someone who a) can fix their problem, b) make their lives easier and c) clients will like working with.  Consider deploying brief client success stories, what you do other than work and the like.
• Face the client.  Make your copy about your client whenever possible and NOT all about you.  Not only is client-centric content more engaging, but it will set you way apart from your competition.

See?

PS:  A tip of the hat to Larry Bodine for posting this story.